


The Travelling Feast

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Illidari [6]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Bloodshed, Gen, Injury, Shotguns, financial troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: Sally Pitch Von Eisenweiss introduces the Illidari to takeaway meals.





	The Travelling Feast

The Broken Shore might have seemed like a strange place to set up shop.

But Sally Pitch Von Eisenweiss was a goblin and worked in bustling markets and humming cities and tiny hamlets alike. From her immersion in the life of trade she had learned one thing. 

People wanted flowers for the table. 

They might have nothing else, they might be living in a warzone, but they could look at flowers on their table and smile. Life was tough. Folks wanted pretty things. Life was uncertain. People wanted glitter, wanted glamour, wanted love and warmth and a little bit of comfort. They wanted hot tea and food in their stomach.

Before she opened shop every morning, Sally went through what mother had called the Merchant’s Ritual. She bounced on her toes, stretched her fingers and rubbed her ears vigorously so that they wouldn’t curl from the cold.

She missed her old house. But as the great merchant Cutprice Mary had said, sometimes loss was merely a thing to set you free. In freedom was opportunity. In opportunity was profit.

This travelling cart carried her entire life now. The left side opened to reveal her storefront, separated from her kitchen and bed by a decorated wooden panel. She had coffee brewing on the stove and the scent steamed out past her as she rolled down the shutters.

Sally’s Fantastic Travelling Feast, now open for business on the Broken Shore.

And there, she saw her first customers trotting up the main road out of the fog. Illidari bled bright green and gleamed with markings as neon bright as the signs of Kezan. A whole group of them had hurtled past her yesterday as she pulled off the road for the night. She’d reached for her shotgun as dark shapes loomed out of the night, outlined by green and violet runes, clinging to a screeching dreadlord and hacking at it as it fled. Another group had dashed past barely seconds after, battering at a trio of felguards and harrying them down towards the beach.

Sally had taken the shotgun to bed and listened to them tear the demons apart. It had taken the better half of the night and afterwards the cliffs and sparse forests had echoed as they called to one another in a tongue beyond her ken, as they whistled commands and launched screaming attacks on the rest of the demonic raid they’d scattered and driven into the woods.

Sounded like vigorous work overall, the kind of thing that induced an appetite. And besides, elves were always hungry. The camp itself had rations, but it was quite the trek and the day was cold. She could catch everyone here, Illidari, couriers, soldiers on patrol.

She hopped up onto the counter, took a sip of throat balm and launched into Trade Cant, a steady rolling tone that a true business woman could keep up all day without losing their voice. 

“Roll up, roll up, tea fresh from the pot, coffee hot off the stove, bacon and oyster mushrooms longing for a stomach!“

She sold more than food. The shelves unfolded to either side of the hotcounter held all manner of trinkets, flowers and blankets and perfumes. But it was food that got people in. 

The Illidari were a rough and ready lot, but they were enthusiastic and willing to talk to anyone. At the moment they had very little money and lived sparse lives. But she was quite sure that would change when the Legion was defeated. And then they would remember those who had been useful to them, those who had accepted them- and their gold- with open arms.

The first group came to a halt as she called out, turning spotlight eyes on her. Two of them trotted over, their wounds steaming in the mornings chill, followed by a larger group of five. She could hear more of them calling back and forth to one another in the fog, up and down the cliffs.

She was about to test a novel invention on them. A hot drink and a slice of fresh-cooked meat in an easily transportable bundle, perfect for the hunter on the move.

She continued to call as they worked up the courage to cluster around her, scenting the premade coffee she set out. Surprisingly cautious, considering they were covered in blood and badly applied bandages.

She tucked that away in the back of her mind. She would send to her cousins in Orgrimmar for aloe bandages, the next courier she saw. In the meantime…

“Two coppers there for a meal, and I’ll throw in an extra bacon slice. Milks over here, hun. Sugar? On the house.”

“Is it poisoned?” The biggest woman eyed her as much as someone with no eyes could. Korvas, she thought she’d heard the others call her. Or more likely Kor’vas, knowing elves. A man wearing the shoulder marks of an innkeeper peered around her.

“How is it on the house if you don’t have a house?”

“Why, this caravan is my very home!” She had taken the executive decision of marking it with arcane paint, mana dye and even demon blood so that it would glow with red and blue flowers in their spectral vision. Delicate crystals hung from the eaves of the cart roof and chimed gently in the wind. It was all very enticing if she did say so herself. The man bumped his short horns carefully into the chimes and smiled at the sound.

About a dozen had taken their food to go and trotted off up the main path. But another group had elected to lay down their cloaks within the warmth sphere of her caravan and now dozed together in a circle, their glaives set into the ground in front of them. 

Another Illidari had landed, handing over a report to Kor’vas. Illune, she thought the name was. She was bleeding openly from a gash across her chest, but didn’t seem overly concerned about it and was merrily helping herself to a second cup of tea. The hunter looked up at the threshold of the storefront for a long moment, as if she could see through the wood. Sally resisted the urge to follow her gaze. It was perfectly normal for a travelling person to have a weapon to defend themselves, even if it was a light-infused shotgun.

As the Famous Fiona once said, a woman with a shotgun has fewer problems.

Asha flicked her ears thoughtfully and then turned to her.

“Do you have any honey?”

“Why ma’am, this is your lucky day! I have a taste of home right here for you!”

Many of them looked to be night elves. Even standing on her counter she was shorter than them. She reached for the side presses and produced a tightly sealed jar of golden honey, a chunk of beeswax floating in the centre.

“Fresh from the hives of the central Val’sharah temple, druids there were very busy planting beautiful meadows.”

“Flowers make me sneeze.” Kor’vas had nevertheless moved forwards to sniff delicately at the freshly fried bacon. “You don’t have to eat everything just because it’s free, Asha.”

“Fresh from Ironforge, that, the wildest boar you’ll get this side of the Hinterlands,” Sally wheedled.

“There’s felboar right here, we hunt them all the time.”

Belath sighed at her.

“Sometimes people get sick of felboar, Kor’vas.”

“Only when you’re cooking it.”

He whacked her on the back of her head with one wing and dived for cover as she spun on him. Sally lifted the frying pan and shook it vigorously so that the contents sizzled.

They were distracted from their posturing almost instantly and fell upon her food once more. Many of those sleeping had woken up and come back for second helpings. Noisy demonic haggling broke out as they fetched together a number of coins amidst themselves, feeling the coinage stamp and biting the edge so as to tell the difference between silver and copper.

“I say we just take it and run.”

“No! That’s what a warden would do!”

A dozen dark spots loomed in the low cloud overhead as some of their fellows glided down to join them. They bounced to an unsteady landing and rubbed their wings against each other like a person warming their hands. Her caravan rocked as two of them landed on the roof, croaking at their fellows.

An upside down head appeared, peering down at her. She climbed across the napkins to pass them up a cup with a straw in it. The Illidari drew back but after a moment a hand appeared, clutching two coppers and a rough emerald as payment.

She held it up beneath her heating lamps and squinted, wishing briefly for her hand lens. It was gone, lost when the bank had taken the house.

To think folk had laughed at the thought of the Travelling Feast! Unimaginative louts. Give her a year and she’d have enough to buy her house back! For she had put out all her beautiful items as well as a hearty meal and now the Illidari were investigating the scarves she’d gathered from the Darnassus markets, the perfumes she’d haggling and smuggled out of Silvermoon.

A large man dropped down out of the fog, showing considerably more control over his landing than the rest. His wings were big enough to hang all the way to the ground and didn’t vanish into his back as the others did. He rumbled to Kor’vas and Kayn in a cant she couldn’t understand, and cast a long glance at those llidari dozing contentedly in the grass near her cart.

She knew a Boss when she saw one.

This could be tricky. He might well warn them off coming here and spending coin. But rather than speaking he stepped into the lamplight, head low so as to avoid getting his horns entangled in her windchimes. They didn’t have eyes, as such, but he seemed to be looking at the potted moonlily. 

She brushed her hands together to clean them and leaned against the frame of her window, weighing out her words. 

“I was wondering if that would catch your-“ she just stopped herself from saying eye. “Attention.”

"Where did a goblin find a moonlily orchid?" 

"Ahh, now there is a tale to tell! In my travels in Valsharah, lovely place, I came upon a terrible fire! And lo, in its path stood this delicate and beautiful flower! I couldn’t leave it to turn to ash.”

“You stole it." 

She gasped and put a hand to her chest. The Illidari cackled, but their attention had sharpened. They were watching the interaction closely. 

"Good sir! How could you accuse an upstanding businesswoman of such a thing? But lo, I fear the poor plant is homesick for it droops like a lonesome Kaldorei maiden, longing for the touch of her lover-”

They burst into laughter, flapping their wings in amusement and throwing up a massive cloud of dust that she had to wave away from the food.

“You haven’t met many Kaldorei women, have you?” But he reached for it with surprising delicacy, massive black talons brushing a wilting flower head. “Moonlilies need moonlight, not sun.” 

“You seem like a fine guardian for it. I’ll pass it over for…two silvers.”

He scoffed. There was something oddly brittle in his expression.

“One.”

She snatched her hat from her head and hurled it to the ground, much to the delight of her customers. Dinner and a show. 

"One? Would you have my children starve?”

That seemed to resonate with the Illidari, oddly enough. 

“You have children?”

“How many? How old?”

“Why indeed, my darlings back in Kezan!" 

"Kids, eh?” A new voice, husky and accented, broke the crowd. She spun and gasped, transforming it to a cry of delight halfway through.

“Tehd, you old trouble maker! Looking fresh out of the crypt at that!” She bounded over to embrace him and whispered in his ear.

“Dude, hoard-brother, please. I lost the house, I have nothing except this cart, don’t ruin this for me.”

Tehd sighed at her. Lout! As if she hadn’t hustled him out of Undercity in the back of her cart after his various misadventures.

“How are little…ah…Sylvan and Nathan?”

Seriously.

“Enough.” The Boss lifted the moonlily with great care and set a coin onto her counter. Sally froze. Though it was silvery, that was no silver coin. That was platinum.

Sally took a deep breath. Honesty went a long way for customer loyalty.

“Sir, wait! I think the coins might have gotten mixed up!”

“I know what it is. Keep my warriors fed and warm for the next three months.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, check out the rest of my writing and find me at https://happyorogeny.tumblr.com/writing


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